


The Nightmare Doctor

by simthemuse



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Angst kinda?, Gen, Implied Death, My First Oneshot, Nightmares, Oneshot, They both do, late-night conversations, nya and zane angst about their shared experiences, nya needs a hug honestly, skybound mention, zane is a Good Boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 10:09:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14133888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simthemuse/pseuds/simthemuse
Summary: Still shaken up by the events of Skybound, Nya has a late-night conversation with Zane about what it's like to die.One-shot(Takes place between Hands of Time and Sons of Garmadon)





	The Nightmare Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This is my first-ever oneshot. I can never bring myself to commit to a single stand-alone chapter deal, so this is a huge step for me. Please read and give me your honest feedback of what you think. Should I write more oneshots?  
> You can find me on Tumblr @ninjahijabimuse if you wanna talk about ninja or just life in general.   
> And...enjoy!  
> ~Muse

The vacuum turned on at midnight.

Not by itself, of course, and not for no reason. The nighttime was when Zane did all the house chores. It was harder to sleep to those sorts of noises, but since it kept the house clean no one fussed.

Technically those roles were for _everyone_ to share, but Zane was more than happy to accomodate his friends’ busy schedules. They had all sorts of bodily functions to deal with, which no doubt took up large chunks of their free time.

If Zane really got his processors firing he could think back to a time when he, too, ate and slept. It wasn’t out of necessity, though - in fact, he never did understand why his father programmed him for such biological tasks.

The digital numbers on the oven clock said 3:45. Just a few more hours until the others awoke.

It was around 4 when he usually finished the housework, leaving him with approximately one hour to himself. That usually depended on how early Kai chose to wake up, being the early-to-rise type. The order often went: Kai, Cole, then Jay, while Nya and Lloyd were always tied for last. Nya slept late because she stayed up late, despite Kai and Jay’s desperate pleas; Lloyd slept late due to spotty sleeping habits caused by insomnia and nightmares.

Although, if Zane’s audio sensors weren’t deceiving him, it seemed he had an especially early riser.

Shuffled footsteps and groggy yawns led into the kitchen, where he was. Zane started to get down some pots and pans from the higher shelves.

The footsteps arrived at the kitchen. He smiled and turned to greet his visitor. “Ah. Hello -” He cocked his head. “- Nya?”

Dressed in an oil-slicked, oversized shirt and fuzzy cat slippers, Nya slid into the counter stool. “What are you doing?” she asked in an exhausted drawl.

“Making breakfast,” said Zane, tying a pink apron around his waist. “Since you are awake. Do you have any requests?”  
Nya cast her head into her hands and said, “Zane. It’s - it’s 4 in the morning. Hardly the time for breakfast.”  
Zane almost declared that it was 3:47, but held back. Zane gave a small, brief pout before removing his apron. He started to set back all the pots and pans to their original locations.

“If it is not breakfast time,” Zane asked as he tucked away the spatula. “Then may I ask why _you_ are awake?”

Nya did not dignify his question, but he tried not to press it. She just sat there with her head in her hands. The ridges in her back jutted out as she hunched over, almost in the sort of position one would vomit in. Kai had explained more than once that her spine poked out how it did because of scoliosis. Nya was sure to remind everyone that it was _extremely mild_ , so much so that it wasn’t even a concern. Zane’s fact-checking confirmed this, but that didn’t keep Kai from using it as an excuse to baby her.

Her eyes sagged with dark lines, her lips pulled taut, her hands clasped at her scalp so tight he feared she would bleed.

This was familiar. And Zane knew just what to do.

“What are you doing?” Nya asked. She set down her hands and watched him pour water, coffee creamer, and honey into a mug. Her ears strained at the whirring and beeping of the microwave.

He placed the steaming mug before her.

His actions having jostled her awake, Nya found the strength and clarity to sport a confused expression. She took the mug nonetheless.

“Drink it, please,” said Zane.

“What for?” She took a swig. Zane was about to warn her that it was too hot for human consumption and that she ought to wait a moment, but it didn’t seem to bother her.

“To help with the nightmares,” he said.

She spittaked. He got napkins to wipe up the mess. She apologized with the look on her face.

“Did I say something wrong?”

Nya shook her head. “But how did you know?” She took a more careful swig this time. Zane waited until she swallowed to respond.

“In my years, I have come to recognize the symptoms of a bad dream,” he said with a sagely nod. “I learned this treatment from Garmadon. He said it used to help when he couldn’t sleep at night. B-but the creamer is my own personal touch.”

She let the steam waft in her face, just sitting there and soaking up Zane’s words like they were an aroma.

He leaned into the counter. “Would you like to discuss it?”  
Nya gulped down some more of it. It wasn’t half bad. A bit sweet for her taste, but there was no doubt Jay or Cole would like it.

Jay and Cole did, in fact, like it. Everyone but Kai did, really - but Zane had a bag of spicy chips on hand for treating _Kai’s_ nightmares.

“I doubt you’d understand,” Nya said. She returned to her drink.

“By my comprehension of human behaviour,” Zane argued. “It will serve to benefit your emotional condition to ‘get things off your chest’ - whether or not I understand.”

She couldn’t look at him.

“Sometimes it is nice to just speak and be heard,” he continued. He sounded as if he spoke from experience. He did.

She set the mug down, still unable to match his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone - especially not Kai or Jay. I promised Jay we’d keep it between me and him, and Kai would blow a fuse if he knew.”  
Zane made the zipped-lips gesture and said, “All knowledge of this conversation will be archived and password-protected.”  
She laughed, but it wasn’t quite as bubbly as her typical laugh.

“Well….” her voice trailed off. Still uncertain. But this could help her. Maybe Zane was right. “A while ago, Clouse resurfaced in Stix. He went searching for an artifact called the Teapot of Tyrahn. He could use it to summon a djinn called Nadakhan, who could grant three wishes.”  
Zane tried not to respond. The clock moved forward by a minute.

“Cliff notes version, Nadakhan framed us all for all sorts of criminal charges,” she continued with a shudder. The idea of sharing her thoughts wasn’t so appealing anymore. “We all went to prison.”  
“But -”  
“Let me finish,” she hissed. “So Nadakhan wanted to use our world to rebuild his own destroyed realm, and also wanted to trap all our souls in a magic sword. Everyone got picked off one by one - Wu, Misako, Kai, you, Cole and Lloyd, everybody - until it was just me and Jay.”  
Zane nodded like he understood.

“We had to use a poison to defeat him in the end,” said Nya. Her shudders grew more violent the closer she got. “But the poison struck me, too. And I fell, and I just remember so _vividly_ , how Jay held me in his arms as I was fading away. The whole world started to cry, as I began to die. Jay wouldn’t let me go.”  
She hid her eyes behind her hands, let her palms get puffy and hot from the pressure and the emotion.

Without removing them, she continued. “And Jay made a wish that reversed time, and everything was back to normal.”  
A contemplative moment passed before Zane said, “That’s quite the dream -”  
“It wasn’t a dream.”  
Nya let the info sink in while she chugged down the final dregs of the drink.

“It all...happened?” Zane’s mechanical voice was somehow weaker.

“Yeah. Sometimes, when I sleep, it comes back to me. How vacant it felt, how violating it was. The way his tears hit my face, how I could just feel the agony seeping from all of you as you watched me die. Right...right in front of you. And I was so - so _helpless_ in making any of the hurt go away. I just had to lay there and take it in, like a - like a -  like an emotion sponge.”  
Zane did not provide a physical reaction as she went on about what it was like to die.

“You know what they say about dying?” She let out a sarcastic snort. “They always describe it as your soul leaving your body. But that’s not how I remember it. It just kinda...sunk. You know? It just flickered out, like a light. First I couldn’t feel anything, then I couldn’t move, and in those final moments I was reduced to just a hot feeling in my ribs.”  
Her head returned to its place in her hands. “And then...and then nothing. Everything went blank, but I couldn’t even think about how empty it was. I didn’t fade into emptiness, I _became_ emptiness. I became nothing. A void. And then somehow the feeling all came back, but ever since it’s all felt wrong. Like I didn’t come back all the way.”  
There was a silent pause, which kept gnawing at her brain because the emptiness was back, it was back with a vengeance and it would pull back under the waves again and she’d return to nothingness and -

“You’re right,” Zane said. He shrugged. “I do not understand.”  
Nya couldn’t tell whether the buzzing sensation meant she was pleased or disappointed.

“Dying is rather different for me. Easier, I think.” He put her mug into the sink. “I cannot imagine how awful it must have been for you, dying how you did. I don’t think I could ever handle such a horrifying experience.”  
A thought hit her brain. “That’s right, you died too.”

Zane flipped the sink switch. Water spurted from the faucet. He soaped and sponged its interior, his back turned to Nya.

“Shut down, more of,” he said.

“What was it like?”  
“This is your time, not mine. You’re the one with the nightmare, not me. Perhaps this is a conversation for another day.”  
She crossed her arms. “You don’t remember, do you?”  
He turned off the sink, but said and did nothing else. Zane’s whole body turned unnervingly still, like someone had just pressed his power button.

It then occurred to her that he _had_ a power button.

Zane’s movements were slow and sluggish when he began to dry the mug with a towel. Still he said nothing. Until…

“When I shut down,” he said. It was the darkest tone she’d ever heard him take. “My code was severely damaged. I was awake, but unable to move or act. Due to the damage my programming sustained, I could not feel or think of anything but the final moments before my death. I kept reliving that moment over and over until I awoke in the Borg Tower system. Sometimes I find a stray reiteration and fall back into a brief loop where I experience my death all over again.”

“Zane -”  
“Is there anything else I can do to help you with your dreams? A cookie, perhaps?” His tone was bright and upbeat once more. “I baked some a few hours ago. There is a fresh batch in the jar.”  
Lo and behold, the lucky cat-style cookie jar was indeed brimming with sugar cookies. They were still warm, too, and tasted as heavenly as ever.

“Thanks,” she said between bites.

“Simply doing my job.”

“And what would that be?”  
“I was built to help those who -”  
“Cannot help themselves, yeah.”  
His bright blue eyes smiled. “And also helping those who _can_ help themselves, but simply need someone to comfort them.”  
Nya’s eyes smiled back. “And who’s there to help you when you need comforting, Zane?”

“I do not sleep,” he said. The tinny echo in his words magnified. “I do not dream. As a nindroid I can regulate all of my thoughts, emotions, and memories. Nindroids do not require comfort.”  
Nya raised her finger in a scholarly way and adopted her best Zane impression. “By my comprehension of nindroid behaviour it will serve to improve your emotional condition if you just open up to someone for once in your life.”

Zane chuckled. “That was a decent impression. With skills like that, you may be able to impersonate me and steal my identity.”  
She gawked at the joke a moment, before remembering that Jay altered his humour setting a few days ago.

The laughter died down after a while. Zane and Nya continued to stand there in the kitchen, eyeing one another with gentle smiles.

“Will you be needing any more comfort?” Zane asked in a butler-like attitude. Someday she’d get him to stop being so formal around family.

“Thanks,” she said. “Really. I mean it. And if you need to get things off your chest, just let me know. Alright, Zane?”

He nodded. “Goodnight Nya. May all your dreams remain pleasant.”  
She made off for the kitchen entrance, but stopped there. She glared at him from the corner of her eye. “Promise me you’ll let me know, Zane.”  
“I promise.”  
She smirked, still suspicious, but made for her bed with a resounding, “Good night.”  
Zane stood there in the kitchen, alone. His mind was empty - Pixal had been leaving his systems more and more these days. Not that he could complain. She did deserve her freedom. Perhaps he would talk to Mr. Borg about rebuilding her. It would be a special surprise.

Pixal’s absence did leave a pesky blankness in his mind. A space where something ought to go. When she left, stray thoughts began to creep in.

 _“Let - my - friends - go!”_ _  
_ The thought knocked at his knees. He leaned into the counter for support.

 _“Foolish ninja. Your time is over!”_ _  
_ His vision began to glitch and his fingers clattered about. He reached up to his face and squeezed the sides of his head. His energy sparked and his circuits hummed to foreign frequencies.

 _“I - am - a ninja - and ninja - never quit!”_ _  
_ Zane bit back the phantom pains of melted wires and irreparable system damage. His programming shook in the presence of a memory. He attempted to banish any thought of his code smashing and blinking into nothing, of the alarms screaming in his head, of how hot his hands were as he tried so hard - too hard - to hold on.

He was swathed in flashes of ice, so much ice, and the endless throbbing of incorrect electrical outputs, of charges pulsing where they weren’t meant to.

The glitching and the agony and the screaming, oh god the pain when would it stop, and how he hung there in digital limbo, trapped on that endless loop of those final moments as his code failed to repair itself, trapped with nothing but broken code and the stasis sensation of death, unable to escape for hours weeks days months, live die repeat live die repeat live die -

 

Memory File Deleted

 

His systems returned to normal. Everything cooled down. His vision refocused. His hands steadied.

The numbers on the oven clock read 4:13. Kai would be awake in roughly 47 minutes, if he met his alarm.

Time to make breakfast.


End file.
